The Stanford women need little introduction as their credentials are pretty well known. As a team, they are the 2017 NCAA champions, and the 2016 NCAA runner ups. They’ve scored numerous top recruits in the country over the last few years with Coach Greg Meehan at the helm. Overall, it would seem from the outside that they’ve found a very solid foundation for their team chemistry.
I wanted to get a closer look at that team dynamic, and how they interact with one another. Since they and I were both at the Art Adamson Invite last weekend, I got the opportunity to shadow the team and document how they go about doing things at a meet.
As you can see in the video, it’s obvious that the women enjoy being around one another. One small thing I noticed that I would guess contributes to their consistent success is while in the meet environment, the women are almost always taking care of their bodies. There’s very little sitting around or times of unproductivity. Whether it’s foam rolling, eating or drinking, warming up or down, they were always busy with something. And they always did it together. During all of these activities, you could see them interacting and laughing with their teammates and coaches.
We as swimmers are always trying to better ourselves and learn within the sport. Hopefully we can all take a little something away from this inside look with one of the best teams in the country. For me, it was: If you want to be great, you have to wear great socks (see :27).
Where was Katie Ledecky?
looks like she’s at 1:03 and 3:03
Ha ha ha. Looks like an awesome and fun environment for the team to thrive.